Mirror Image

The Hogwarts Express came and Hermione boarded it with Ron and Harry, watching down the cramped corridor as Theo and Draco got to their own compartment with Zabini, Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson. There was a part of her that wanted to be there with them, but she knew that any kind of protest by Ron and Harry would be second only to the kind of anger Draco and Theo’s friends would show if Hermione were to be introduced to the group. It was better for them to keep their distance, meeting only in the library during the later hours of the evening, or down by the Lake where no one sat for fear of the giant squid.

The trip to school seemed faster this year. Maybe it was the blessed quiet that came from Harry and Ron getting into a game of chess almost as soon as they boarded, meaning the first hour of the trip was eaten up comfortably. Hermione had glamoured one of her books - a gift from Theodore - and spent the majority of the ride reading about potioneering with the use of human components without letting on to her own friends. Their remarks, standard over the last 4 years Hermione had known them, were somehow even more judgemental now that Hermione knew who was on the other side of them. Harry’s snide, small comments about the Slytherins and Ron’s strangely prejudiced statements about Muggle-borns and Purebloods rubbed her the wrong way, even more so now that she imagined Draco and Theo on the receiving end. 

She burned in shame just thinking about them hearing how Harry and Ron talked, and she did nothing to stop them.

The second half of the trip was less of a reprieve. Ron and Harry were engaged in some kind of argument about the upcoming year of Quidditch with Neville, while Ginny and Luna were discussing shopping in Hogsmeade as opposed to Diagon Alley. None of them tried to pull Hermione from her book, none of them bothered asking what it was.

None of her compartment-mates seemed to notice when Hermione drew absentmindedly in the margin of her books with her finger, a pinprick of blood leaving a red trail in its wake. Before she flipped the page, she pulled on her blood hard and the swirling, tiny lines would slither back from the page.

No one noticed.

No one noticed, but Neville did look up whenever Hermione did it, and he would sniff like there was something in the air to detect. He didn’t look over at Hermione, though. He only looked at the door, like he was expecting someone to come walking down the corridor.

Hermione wondered what her magic smelled like when it was roused and bright.

The train pulled into the station as Hermione finished the chapter on blood in potions, and she got her things together. Not one of the boys in the compartment with her asked to help her reach the overhead rack, but that was okay. She knew Draco and Theo would have.

~~~

The Triwizard Tournament was an unexpected part of the opening feast. Hermione wondered what exactly it would be like - Dumbledore made it sound like some kind of trial of strength and intelligence, but he had warned them, too. It would be dangerous.

And then there were the guests in the castle. The French students from Beauxbatons and the Bulgarian students from Durmstrang were unfortunate additions to Hogwarts.

Unfortunate because Hermione caught Theo looking at them every time they passed the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. She wasn’t even sure why it bugged her so much, but it did. She didn’t have a claim to Theo, and she didn’t control his eyes. She couldn’t control Theo’s wandering gaze anymore than she could control Pansy Parkinson’s lingering hand on Draco’s arm.

Still, she made a point to huff the next time she met the boys by the Lake when Theo let his eyes wander towards the flying carriage across the lawn. They were only able to meet out on the grounds when everyone else was in Hogsmeade, or when they were able to hide away, out of sight of the castle and Hagrid’s hut both.

“Something troubling you?” Draco asked from where he was reclined in the sun, turning his head towards Hermione with an amused smile. “Or are you just annoyed with Theodore’s new obsession?”

“It’s not an obsession,” Theo said instantly, jumping to defend himself. “I’m just intrigued. I mean, beautiful women and bulging muscles, and a Quidditch star. Come on, it’s a Quidditch star for Merlin’s sake.”

Hermione rolled his eyes. “Victor Krum is annoying more than anything. He’s like a statue, all muscles and nothing going on in his head.”

“How do you know that?” Theo asked sharply, and Draco sat up so quickly, grass flew from the tips of his hair. If she didn’t know the two of them liked one another, she might have taken it as a sign of jealousy.

“Have you talked to him?”

Hermione gave them both an unimpressed look. “He follows me. Sometimes he sits in the library with me, other times he just sort of trails me from class to class. It’s no big deal.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. Narcissa’s help had been a godsend, even being back in the castle. Hermione’s hair had taken on a more elegant shape, soft curls and long, blonde highlights cascading down her back, and she’d started pushing it behind her ear more. Over her shoulder. Up into a bun or tied back with clips.

Theo and Draco shared an unimpressed look of their own. “So I can’t look,” Theo began.

“But you can have a secret admirer?” Draco finished.

Hermione shrugged her shoulder. “The difference is, I don’t want Krum’s attention. But Theodore here clearly wants attention from our guests.”

“She has you there,” Draco said. He laid back on the grass, looking back at Theo as he did. “You’ve been acting like a dog around them all, asking every Durmstrang guy to carry your bag because it’s just too heavy and offering your sweater to every Beauxbaton girl who forgets her own.”

“I won’t apologize for being a gentleman,” Theo said, sticking his nose in the air, and Hermione couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. The year had been bizarre so far, and they were barely a month into it. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was strange, rough around the edges, and if Hermione was being honest, his magic smelled dark. Hot and bitter and chemical. Nothing like the natural scents that followed the boys’ magic, nor the smoky finish of Lucius and Narcissa’s magic. She had a suspicion he was a Dark wizard, but darker than her friends. Dark like a Death Eater was Dark. Dark like the magic she’d scented at the World Cup match.

“Have you two noticed the Defense professor yet?” Hermione asked, looking to the boys and changing the subject abruptly. They smiled.

“Who hasn’t?” Theo asked. “Anyone who’s been around Dark magic knew the first time they went into his classroom, it’s like really Dark. Bad Dark.”

“It’s unnatural,” Draco said. “All magic, even Dark magic, should smell natural. His doesn’t.”

“Not to mention he’s drinking something from that flask of his,” Theo added. “On the hour, every hour. Polyjuice, anyone?”

Hermione shuddered a bit. “His first lesson was on the Unforgivables. It was cruel.”

Draco put his hand out for Hermione to take, a surprisingly gentle gesture of comfort. She took it and was surprised to find it warm, but not clammy. Just warm and soft. “The Unforgivables can be very cruel,” he said. “I’m sorry that was the introduction he gave Gryffindor to Dark magic.”

Hermione smiled a little and squeezed his fingers, fighting the butterflies in her stomach as they fluttered strong and harsh. They were getting stronger with every interaction, every discussion of complex magic, every casual, loving touch. “I think he might be a Death Eater.”

Theo snorted. “You think? That man is absolutely a Death Eater. I don’t know which one, or how he managed to trick the old man when he got here, but he’s a Death Eater.”

“Do you think he’s one of the ones planning to bring back the Dark Lord?” she asked.

“Probably,” Draco said. “It’s too much of a coincidence if not.”

“Why do they even call it Dark magic?” Hermione said, mostly rhetorically. She’d read that Dark magic included even spells they used at Hogwarts, like bombarda and petrificus totalus. “Dark magic isn’t evil, and we learn some of it. Just none of the really interesting parts, like the Blood magic parts.”

Theo let out a laugh. “Mya, you’re stumbling into the exact question Draco and I asked ourselves back in first year.”

“It has to do with the intended effect of the magic on existing matter,” Draco said. He held up one hand in a fist and then spread his fingers wide, like an explosion. “If it reduces matter in some capacity, it’s Dark. So bombarda is Dark because it blows things apart. If it creates matter, it’s Light. In the case of people, Light spells are those that heal or benefit a person’s wellbeing, while a Dark spell might hurt someone. Which is why some forms of protego, when altered to include darker intentions, can be more Dark than Light, even when creating something. And there’s more than just Dark and Light. There’s Grey magic, which is magic that can’t be concretely determined as Dark or Light because it depends on a caster’s intent. Neutral magic has neither intent, nor real effect on people, like household charms or quick-note spells. And then there’s the branches of free magic, like Natural magic. Blood magic, while being generally considered as Dark, is actually a form of Natural magic because it’s something you can do without a wand just by harnessing one’s own power.”

“He’s a walking textbook,” Theo said with an affectionate eye roll, and Draco stuck his tongue out at Theo, and Hermione couldn’t help the warm feeling she got in her chest watching them tease one another. They were so comfortable around each other, and around her, and it was a marked difference to the way Ron and Harry seemed to fight as second nature. “But he’s right. Most magic you’ve been told is Dark, is actually part of the Natural or Grey family. But some wizards, such as Dumbledore, are incredibly wary of anything that could be potentially Dark, so they paint with a wide brush.”

“A lot of that is because of what happened shortly before the Statute of Secrecy went into law,” Draco added. “A lot of wizards were angry and used Grey magic for darker reasons, with poor intentions. Rather than categorizing the social climate as being dark, most wizards began to label the spells that rose to prominence during that time as Dark themselves. Blood magic was one such branch that got labeled as Dark because of what it was used to do.”

Hermione reclined herself, leaning until her back was knocking against the dock. She hummed a little. “Can I ask you both something? It’s a bit of a change in subject, but it’s been bugging me for a while.”

“Go ahead,” Draco said.

“Why the Statute of Secrecy?” Hermione asked. “Why did we go into our own little world and make it a crime to reveal the existence of magic to Muggles?”

Draco hummed. “Because of what we were just talking about.”

“Did you learn about witch trials?” Theo asked. “In Muggle school before you came here, did you learn about witch trials and the persecution of pagans and all that?”

Hermione nodded.

“Well, those things did happen. They just didn’t happen the way Muggles remember. It’s hard to figure out when exactly witches and wizards came about, but as far as we can tell, it happened almost as soon as Muggles themselves came on the scene. And that was all fine for a while, but witches and wizards used to rely more heavily on Natural magic. When you were casting blood magic, did you ever make something happen that got out of control?”

Hermione thought back to the puddle of blood she couldn’t quite control, the splash of scarlet down her desk and onto the carpet. She nodded.
“Well, there you go, Mya. A bunch of witches and wizards who couldn’t control their magic fully, pre-wands, and you’ve got scared Muggles trying to hang them before they can burn the village down. It didn’t help when someone saw some well-meaning wizards controlling his blood, it probably looked rather demonic once Christianity took hold of certain places. The earliest records of Muggles and wizards fighting are pretty well hidden in plain sight, as stories of warring tribes who fractured apart from one another, or stories of warring towns that killed one another. Eventually, it became something of a religious nature. Driving out pagans, burning magical writings and histories, anything they could do to squash it. That didn’t work, because wizards kept popping up, and they’d already tried driving out paganism, so the logical next step was clearly killing those possessed devil worshipers so they couldn’t pass along their genes.”

Draco smacked Theo’s arm. “He makes it sound simple. But I guess that is the simple part. After 15-hundred years of known, documented wizard- and witch-killings, a lot more of them turned to magic to protect themselves. Wizards started staging rescue missions where entire villages were burned in an attempt to save the witches and wizards there. Curses were really popular during this time, anything they could think of that would protect them.”

“And then the Statute of Secrecy came in, because it wasn’t sustainable to just let the Muggles and the wizards tear each other apart,” Theo said. “And old farts decided that Natural magic had started the whole thing, so Blood magic was now suddenly Dark magic. Wands were standard practice, and anyone doing magic without one was suspect. Schools started teaching only Light spells, and anything else deemed appropriate was never really categorized appropriately. We learn non-verbal magic,” Theo said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s Natural magic. But we learn it in fifth year or above, when we’re super dependent on the wand to begin with.”

Hermione hummed a little and then brought a bead of blood to her fingertip. She let it balance there, just hanging onto the apex of her finger, before she carefully moved her hand to where a wildflower was growing at the edge of the lake and let the drop slide off her finger. It splashed onto the ground, watery and clear. It was strange to think such beautiful, pure magic could be anything but well intentioned and loved. It was strange to think the people who had encouraged her - had decided she was worthy of magic and should learn it - were the same people who had tried to cripple her understanding of it. They'd tried to tie her to her wand as a crutch.

How odd.

~~~

Hermione liked to write. It wasn’t a chore to her to create an argument on paper, something Draco seemed to understand with no further explanation while Harry and Ron found it annoyingly swotish.

It just helped her organize her thoughts. When she was writing, she was thinking of counterarguments, supporting arguments, and conclusions. It allowed her to shift her own thoughts, argue with herself on what she truly believed. Theo didn't so much understand the writing part of it, but he loved arguing. He found it to be a reliable way of honing one's own beliefs, the pitfalls in their thinking, and their understanding of other people.

The first argument she wrote on the inclusion of all magics in school curriculums was nearly 30 inches long, and was full of complicated, historical context. Draco and Theo each tried to peek at it, to grab it from her bag, but they were always blocked. She didn't like to share her thoughts before they were clear.

The first article she wrote on the experiences of a Muggleborn in the wizarding world turned more into a newspaper expose than anything else. That one she rewrote several times before she burned the lesser drafts and kept the final draft for herself.

Her third, and personal favorite piece, was cleverly titled Reclaiming Muddy Blood. It was the only one she dared to share with Theo and Draco. It was complex, with just enough historical context and a justification for Muggle-borns to learn Natural magic. Theo found it amusing, Draco found it riveting, and both warned her not to show anyone else.

Hermione made sure to keep her writing to herself. She only ever wrote in the dead of night, with a soft lumos hanging over her head and her curtains drawn closed around her bed. Crookshanks was the only one in the dormitory to care about it, only because it kept him up, and he’d sometimes leave if he was truly upset about it.

A week after he started leaving, Draco told her he was staying with him in his dorm those nights when Hermione got the itch to write. It was adorably kind, and Hermione’s heart thrummed painfully when he told her he’d gotten a blanket out just for Crooks.

~~~

With the Triwizard Tournament the only thing on anyone’s mind, there was a certain disappointment that came with the age line. Hermione had found it a relief - she knew that her more glory-hungry and cocky friends might have put their names forth without it. But to those like the Weasley twins, Harry, and Ron, it was an inconvenience. An unfair obstacle to their future fame and glory. Exactly what Hermione had feared.

Draco and Theo were of a similar mind, but they didn’t say it. Draco was too proud to admit he was glad to not be of age because it saved him from trying to come up with an excuse as to why he wouldn’t put his name forward. Theo was less concerned with how it looked and how he might look if he participated. Apparently permanent disfigurement wasn’t an unusual outcome of the trials. He’d made a joke of it, slumping and limping exaggeratedly for them as he bemoaned the possibility of being injured that badly. It was funny and ridiculous, and exactly the kind of thing that Hermione found strangely endearing about him.

The fact they wouldn’t be participating was rather comforting to Hermione.

“It’s not going to work,” Hermione sing-songed, watching as Fred and George drank an aging potion. They thought for sure it would work, but Dumbledore was too smart for that. Surely he would have factored the idea of an aging potion into his age line.

They jumped into the ring and the whole room went up in cheers. Fred and George high-fived, both celebrating, and Hermione made eye contact with Theo across the room just to raise her eyebrows in disbelief. He made a face back, something over-the-top and silly, and Hermione had to snort into her hand to hide it.

And then the twins were flung out of the age line and groaned, each one sporting an old man’s beard.

They were squabbling on the ground, fighting one another and shouting about how the other had said it would work, when the doors to the Great Hall burst open and everyone jumped. The fight between the twins was forgotten in favor of gawking at Victor Krum coming down the main aisle. He strode to the cup with confidence, and Theo stared the entire time. Krum stepped over the age line easily, his boots thudding as he did so, and he lifted one hand to put his name in the fire. The flame crackled and spit, but it took his name nonetheless. Krum nodded once, turned, and began to walk back to the door.

The only difference between his walk into the ring and his walk out of it was that his eyes were glued to Hermione’s as he passed back through the Great Hall and out the big, wooden doors.

That night, Hermione reminded herself. He isn’t mine. He doesn’t like me. This will pass. And tried to think of Krum instead. She only half-succeeded in finding a distraction in Krum, the butterflies that seemed to flutter at every glance from Draco or Theo raging against her traitorous mind.  He was fit, and he was clearly very devoted, but he wasn't smart. He wasn't funny. He wasn't the wizard Hermione had started to want.

~~~

“It’s bloody unfair,” Ron moaned, sitting in front of the fireplace. Hermione rolled her eyes but said nothing - she wasn’t going to get involved in the same fight again. “Who is Dumbledore to say what we can or cannot do?”

“It’s about the parents,” Harry said. “I mean, why else would he be getting involved? I bet any amount of money, it’s families like Malfoy’s who threw fits in the past when their kids signed up for the Tournament.”

“They probably paid him,” Ron said. “They’ll do anything to protect their little git of a son.”

Hermione bit her tongue, tasting iron and magic in her mouth. She hated sitting there, hearing her friends talk about Draco that way. She knew the Malfoys had money - she had been in their Manor, eaten off their silver - but they didn’t pay off the school to benefit Draco. They didn’t believe in making things for him easier in those ways. They might have bought him things, made sure he was dressed in the finest clothes, armed with the newest books and best materials for school, but they didn’t pay for him to get good grades or to avoid trouble.

Just as they had given Hermione gifts, and clearly cared for Theo, they were generous with their wealth. But they did not bribe people for their benefit.

“Did you see that dodgy one, the one with dark hair?” Harry asked. “He was in the Great Hall when the twins tried to put their names in the cup. He’s always staring across towards the Gryffindor side of the Hall, like he's watching us. I bet you any amount of money, he's a Dark wizard in the making.”

Ron huffed. “What a tosser.”

Hermione almost said something. Theodore was loud and brash, a little abrasive to those who didn’t know him, but he was kind. Funny. And he was a loyal, good friend to the end of time. But she was better than starting a fight she couldn’t win, and Harry and Ron wouldn’t listen to her. Not on this. So instead, she stood and gathered her things. She nodded at both boys and headed to the stairs to the girls dormitory, turning back to them before she disappeared up to her room.

“I’m going to bed now,” she said. “I suggest you both do the same instead of sitting here and speculating on other students. Good night.”

The conversation between the boys was a moot point not three days later, when Harry’s name came soaring out of the flame, and the entire school was plunged into chaos.